An End to the Feast or Famine Cycle? (Demand Studios review)

When a representative of Demand Studios asked me to review their site last month, I was hesitant. Quite frankly, I’ve been very busy lately and I didn’t have a lot of extra time. Also, I try not to get too involved with sites that are considered “content sites” because, in my experience, they tend to pay less than average.
However, I also know that many WritingThoughts readers are curious about Demand Studios (even more so now that Deb Ng of Freelance Writing Jobs has partnered with Demand Studios), so I reluctantly agreed to review the site. However, I did insist that I give my honest opinion. So, that’s what this is – my honest opinion of the Demand Studios experience.

Getting Started

The process of signing up for Demand Studios went quickly. I was approved to write about a half hour after I signed up. Writers who are interested in applying will need the following:

Resume

Multiple writing samples

Writers who are interested in Demand Studios should also have a photo of themselves handy since one of the first things they will need to do after they are accepted is post a photo and write a brief biography about themselves.

After I was accepted as a writer, I took some time to look over the resources available to writers on the Demand Studios site. The resources are extensive. The first resource was not actually on the site, but attached to my approval e-mail: a 20-page guide for new writers. In addition to the guide for new writers, I found the following writer resources online:

Templates and samples

Writer forum

Training camp materials

Help desk

Of course, there are likely resources on the Demand Studios site that I didn’t have a chance to review.

Writing a Demand Studios Article

Writing a Demand Studios article is nothing like the writing that I do for my private clients. My private clients pay for accurate material that is presented from a very unique perspective. I provide a wide variety of writing products to my clients ranging from extensive tutorials, press releases, landing pages, ghost blogging, and yes, even a few web content articles. All Demand Studios articles, however, closely follow one of several pre-determined formats or templates.

For my review, I chose to write on some financial topics. I often cover this type of topic for private clients and I knew where to find accurate information. (Admittedly, this topic is a little more technical than some.) On the date that I looked, all available articles paid $15.00 or were revenue share articles.

My first article took me two hours to research, write, and download into the Demand Studios form. The second article took me only 45 minutes, and the third took me about an hour. My articles were accepted a few days later and I received payment via PayPal about a week after I initially submitted them. The articles were published on a client site, in this case eHow. You can see them here.

Things I Liked About Demand Studios

There were plenty of instructional resources available for the new writer

Templates and samples made it clear what they wanted

The ability to take work at your discretion

Adequate time to write an article from the time that you select a topic (seven days)

Prompt payment via PayPal as promised

Author bylines for work done

There seemed to be plenty of work available

Things I Didn’t Like About Demand Studios

Limited types of writing. There are less than a dozen templates by my count – but you won’t do really creative projects here.

Pay is on the low side of acceptable (at Salary.com the 2009 range for a content specialist is $40,878 to $74,818).

Jobs are listed (and selected) by title. Some titles are unclear or have obscure meanings.

What I Don’t Know Much About

Filmmaker and Copy Editor positions – I joined the team as a writer, so I don’t know anything about these other positions.

Higher paid articles. I didn’t see anything with a higher upfront payment than $15.00, so I don’t know whether or not more experienced writers are given the opportunity to accept higher paying gigs.

Non-article writing such as title reviewing and title proofing.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that I would write for this site again, but mainly if I had no projects from my private clients. In fact, that’s one of the benefits of this site – you can write for them when and if you have time to do so. There’s no commitment to write x articles in a week, or even in a month.

In fact, this site could easily be used to end the familiar freelance writer’s “feast or famine” cycle.

Others who might wish to write for Demand Studios include:

Writers who are just getting started

Writers who do not wish to market their writing services to private clients

Writers who are transitioning from a full-time job

Non-writers who wish to supplement their other income or share their expertise

(Disclosures:While I was asked to write this review, I was not paid for the review itself. This review represents my honest opinion of the site based on the experience that I had at the time that I wrote the review. I did, however, receive compensation for the articles that I wrote during my research for this review. You can find those articles on eHow, here.)

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About Laura Spencer

I am a successful freelance writer with 20 years of copy writing experience. I am available for consulting, business writing, copy writing, editing, technical writing, and web content writing. In addition, I have co-authored an ebook, The Step By Step Guide to Freelance Writing Success, to help writers succeed. Find me on
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Comments

Excellent review. This is probably the most accurate review of Demand Studios I’ve ever seen. I know a few beginner writers and I’ll forward it on to them so they know what to expect if/when they sign up.

This is such a great review! Nice job. I got accepted to DS a few weeks ago though I’ve only submitted 2 articles so far. I am a little overwhelmed by all of the guidelines. Other than that I really like it.

Very comprehensive — and balanced — review! I’ve actually been signed up with Demand Studios for quite some time now but have yet to submit an article. To be honest, I have great difficulty motivating myself to write for a site that pays so little per article. My feeling, every time I reconsider writing for them is, “Been there; done that.”

In the past, I’ve done extensive writing for companies similar to Demand Studios, which paid $10-15 per article, despite the considerable and time-consuming research required to complete the articles (often written under impossibly high quotas), and have found that doing too much of this sort of writing is the fast track to burnout.

As you say, this kind of writing can be a good way to fill in the gaps in your writing income or for new writers to break in. But for anyone other than the writer who thrives in this sort of fast-paced, assembly-line writing environment, I wouldn’t generally recommend a steady diet of such projects. As you’ve said, the good thing is the lack of quotas, which makes it easier to use this market simply to supplement existing projects.

Who knows? One day soon, I may decide to submit something to Demand Studios, myself after all. I might even reconsider applying there as a copy editor. But, I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit that my hope has always been to find better-paying markets for my hard work.

Thanks for providing a very balanced look at one market option that is, if low-paying, at least relatively easy to break into.

Nice review of Demand Studios. I’m a fan of writing for eHow, in large part because if you choose the right topics you can get some good passive income over time – and to me that’s more important than the upfront payments. I haven’t looked at Demand Stuidos in general, so it’s good to see a review like this. Thanks for sharing.

So far I’ve only written for eHow, but I have been researching other writing opportunities such as DS. I haven’t taken the plunge with them yet, but I may soon, since they could provide a little extra cash now and then. Thanks for such an unbiased review.

As someone who has done work for Demand Studios in the past, I have a different view of their system. I’ve preached about it for months on my old blog, and at the FWJ website.

I’ve never made below 45 dollars an hour with Demand Studios. In fact, most times that I manage to wander over and do work for them it’s in one of my niches, and I can generally make at the very least 75 dollars an hour.

In other words, I’m doing at the very least 3 articles an hour, but in my niche topics I’ve been able to generally do 5-6 articles in an hour.

Now, granted, it’s a niche topic. Something I have 15+ years of personal experience on and three generations of family with over 750 million dollars of work done nationwide to back me up. Home improvement, specifically in ceramic and natural stone installations/topics. The How To, About, and Strategy articles in this area are extremely easy for me to write because I know the topic better than anyone else, and I don’t have to research said topic. I can literally hop on, plug in my keywords, pull 5 articles at random, and write them. Bam. Done. 75 dollars. Time for a nice dinner out with my wife.

I don’t use Demand Studios regularly. I prefer to focus on my travel writing and content work for European clients. But it’s nice to know that if I need a quick picker-upper then I can hop over, pull a few articles, and make a quick hundred bucks if I need to.

Remember, just because you (any writer in question) can only do 1-2 articles an hour doesn’t mean that everyone out there is trapped into the same system of research and time required to write said articles. It’s an extremely lucrative content site for people whose niches are represented, but I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the norm. Most people I know who use DS regularly make between 30-45 dollars an hour. Considering that the national average for American citizens is 21 dollars an hour (in 2008), I’d say 30-45 dollars is a more than fair wage for doing a job that doesn’t even require you to leave the house.

You might be interested in knowing that there have actually been several writers who signed up for Demand Studios because of this review. Each contacted me privately to thank me for this unbiased look at it, which they found to be helpful.

I have been writing for Demand for about a year now, on and off when I have the time. I have very high ranks there, as they ran you according to how well you write articles. I have never spent over 45 mintues writing an article. most take about 30 minutes. My goal is to write 2 an hour, take a break, and do it again. 6 articles a day takes merely 3 hours, and I make 15 per article. So that amounts to 90 a day. That amounts to $30 per hour. That is pretty good pay. You can get burned out, so consider doing it in spurts, two or three articles at a time. I am merely looking for a supplemental income until I return to teaching. Demand is great for that.

The most important thing about this review was that it was on a topic crucial to a well-defined audience: it’s a must read for any freelance wordsmith looking for work.

The next most important aspect was the clear conclusion: “The bottom line is that I would write for this site again, but mainly if I had no projects from my private clients.” That simple statement broadcasts where this activity fits on the freelancer’s to do list: pretty far down, below private clients, but clearly still on the list.

The third aspect I liked was All the evidence that backed up the conclusion.

Lastly, I thought the disclosure was nice. You never know what you can trust without it.

What I might have done differently would be to broadcast the conclusion in the headline or first paragraph, so readers can read faster. if they know where you are going, they have a context for the evidence. Perhaps something like: Why I Would Write for Demand Studios Again–if I Didn’t have Something Better to do.

Greg, I especially appreciate your constructive criticism. To tell you the truth, reviews are not my favorite thing to write. They are basically subjective and there will always be someone who has a different opinion.

Laura,
Thanks for all the great information. But what about the complaints (on other web sites) that Demand Studio collects and sells the writers’ personal information? As I understand it, Demand demands (no pun intended) personal information before granting approval. I’ve also read that some very experienced writers were rejected almost immediately – like before anyone had the time to even read their articles. I’m sure you’re a fine writer and that’s why your work was accepted, but of course Demand asked to review their site. For this reason alone, Demand certainly would want your process to go smoothly. Your thoughts?

Interesting. Because when I googled Demand Studio yesterday, I first saw several sites with complaints before I got to your positive review. But of course everyone’s experience is different, so I guess I won’t really know till I try it for myself. Thanks-

Actually, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this review is over six months old. I haven’t done much with the company since I wrote it, so I don’t know what, if anything, has changed.

However, if you browse through the comments on this post I think that you will notice some who like it and some who don’t. There are even some who viewed this as a negative review and claim to be able to write much more quickly than what I experienced. Go figure!

Well I was just turned down by Demand in spite of (or because of?) 20 years of experience, over 24 books written (27 if you count the fiction ones) and literally dozens (if not hundreds, you lose track after a while) of articles, presentations and white papers I have authored. Offering expertise in Nuclear, Computer, Scuba diving, hunting, fishing and several other areas I thought they might be interested in me. I guess not. After seeing the low rates posted here maybe I am lucky!

Yes I worked for DS for about a year. In the beginning it was great even though the pay is okay. Quite often I had to put a lot of research into an article. When I started writibng quite a few articles for them I ran into many problems. First I have to say that I have been writing for a very long time, mostly as a hobby. I have 2 degrees that pertain to writing: Children and Teenage Literature and English/Literature. I also have experiemce in newswriting, ghostwriting web pages, 2 published books(ghostwrter, etc.

More than half of my articles would be sent back for a revise. 1. The article discription was not always clear 2. They had many editors that were not always on the same page so you never knew your guidelines even with a template. Then after revising articles, half of those were turned down and so I never got payment. It was very frustrating to say the least. I end up complaining about the inconsistencies and was then told that they no longer wanted me to write for them. I have since found other sites that rarely send back my article for a revise, in fact most revision is a request for a minor change not a demand for a complete makeover. Unfortunately the pay is minimal for quality work. Do you know of any sites where the pay is descent?

I think Demand Studios, aka Demand Media aka e-How aka Livestrong is a fraud. I have been writing quite a long time and in specialty areas. The pay is abysmal, of that there is no doubt. The titles are not well organized and cannot be found easily for the topics most writers like to have as their niche type. They expect extensive research (even if you are an expert) , citations and have very stringent guidelines, particularly word limits. There is no way to write some of the articles as they are either too complex to conform to their system or rather their templates on each style they want of you. Other titles you cannot come up with enough information without writing a lot of filler words and trying to elongate an article. The CES all want something different, they actually OWN the sites they are mainly funnelling the articles to so actually after you get your one time payment (barring the few revenue share articles) they continue to forever make royalties on YOUR writing and contractually let you know they OWN your writing once it is written, even if they change or say things you would never want to nor ever would say.

I wrote for them for a total of a few weeks and I just could not believe the number of rewrites I would get with NO direction as to how to rectify whatever the issue was because the CES are not consistent; some are great and will tell you what to do, some are awful and will give no direction.

MY personal opinion, do not write for them unless you are in dire straits and need the money desperately. They misrepresent how they will be using your work and it is far too difficult to develop as a writer for newbies if they are looking for experience as you are really being asked to give bullet point articles that do not allow perspective.

Demand Studios is a fraud, Demand Media is a fraud (the mother company) and the same goes for answerbag, e-how and livestrong, as far as I see they own these medias (I may be wrong about livestrong). So they are paying you for a lot of hard work and then making money off you for the forever hereafter.

I write for Demand Studios and I have to say that I enjoy it. I write for LIVESTRONG so each article pays $25. If you excel, the rate goes to $30. I can write 2 articles per hour and I usually write 5 per day (more if I need to fund something). 2 1/2 hours and the freedom to go wherever I want, whenever I want is amazing. I’m in my 20’s so I’m hoping to keep this position for a while and explore the world Demand Studios isn’t for everyone, but it’s an easy way to get money if you’re a good writer.

I am a registered nurse and have been writing for Demand Studios/Livestrong for 2 months now. I started writing only for the extra money; it seemed better than trying to pick up extra shifts at the hospital. My experience has been all good. I write an average of one article/day for $25 each, and so far have made $425. Not bad, for about an hour a day. It helps pay bills and extras. I am not a professional writer; I did take advanced writing classes when I was in college, but my main profession is nursing. I write health articles, and diet and exercise articles, as I am also a personal fitness coach. I’m sure I could make a lot more money if I spent more time at it! I am grateful for the editing comments, etc, as I’m sure I need more guidance than professional writers.

Thanks for this review. I’ve been with them since 2009. I think out of all the content sites currently out there, this is the one that actually pays the most as far as straight pay. If you’re patient enough to wait for long-term, then I’d go to Hub or Associated content and the like…..AOL now has their own, but it’s still in its infancy, so that’s something to keep an eye on.

One of the downsides of course is that you sell your rights to them if you accept the 15.00/article or what have you and therefore, can’t make any extra money for residual income. I’ve probably made total $600.00. I thought I could write consistently for a month straight at a time to save up some money for vacation and honestly, I just can’t do it. I run two blogs besides writing for them and run a photography business. There’s just no time in a day for the amount of research that you are expected to do on top of writing and then re-writing if an article is sent back. Obviously, every writer has their method of completing assignments but with the types of material available even if you have knowledge in that area ,some of the topics are less than interesting. You are writing for topics that are google searched, so you get some pretty off-the-wall stuff and if you’re looking to make your articles interesting—just write for a publication. This is straightforward, wikipedia type stuff, nothing to win a Pulitzer Prize over.

My pros for this: if you need some extra cash for gas or something to save up for…or if you have no other income source. Great for part-time work. They pay on time every week through Pay Pal.

My cons: you do not retain your rights (as a photographer, retaining your rights is important). The pay in relation to the amount of research is not level. There are inconsistencies with the copyediting as various copy editors get your work.

I would absolutely love to be able to apply at Demand Media as a copy editor, but I can’t even apply unless I have the required experience. Please tell me, how can I finally gain the experience I need to become a freelance copy editor?? I loved your article Thanks!

Really, I have connection with Demand Media–so, I’m not sure that I can help you. However, you may wish to look for copyediting jobs on the sites that post freelance writing jobs. Here’s a link: http://www.writingthoughts.com/?p=223

Well I really don’t know where to start. I write articles for Associated Content, Seed and did write for Demand Media. I started about a year ago for Demand and recently have gotten a lot of flack from them including a letter nothing like yours. It seems after doing a vast amount of articles for them and having fairly good responses and only 7 rejections in one year’s time, I have been sent a letter stating they do not require my services anymore. That is because I had trouble with one particular editor and wrote two grievance letters stating so. Needless to say I was scolded and told I would be put on limited account status while they did a review, however the review seemed to be unfair because after over a month time they have decided to let me go as a writer citing no specific issues just that they have decided that I am not right for their site. I was allowed to finish my work and all of them was processed without rewrites, as about 80% of my total work for them. I have learned something very valuable about this whole situation if you write for DS don’t send in a grievance you will get black-balled.
I have been trying to reach Mr. Rosenblatt about the situation because I really loved writing for DS but my emails have not been responded to so I have decided to leave information about the incident on the net see any one of the various sites I work for and type in my name and demand studios rejection.

I am a featured health and wellness writer for Associated Content and make very good money for both Associated Content, Constant Content and Seed.com.

If you enjoy working for a company with contradictory policy, inconsistent copy editors, and a lack of understanding deep research and writing skills then Demand Studios is for you.

Item: Use your vast experience in a particular area to create informative articles. BUT base information on what people would get with a basic google search. If they can find it through google, why the hell are we writing about it?

Thanks for the excellent thread of thoughts on Demand Studios. I just received through e-mail (that’s “email” in Demand Studios style!) my first performance review as a copy editor, and I guess I’m not doing too swell of a job because I have not been sending enough articles back for rewrites. The performance review scolded me fairly on other matters of style and content; nevertheless, I was peeved that I received such criticism after only a week of copy editing for Demand. (Background: I have been copy editing for nearly 30 years.) I was also peeved that the review did not identify my reviewer by name. Such is the nature of this kind of free-lancing, I guess. Anyway, as I sort out whether to continue with Demand, I want to pass on two messages to any writers out there working for Demand: First, I really feel for you, putting together your articles under stringent guidelines and for relatively poor pay. Second, if I continue with Demand, I might be one of your copy editors, but I want you to know that I usually frame my instructions for rewrites in the kindest of ways. If you are new to writing, please look at my requests for rewrites as constructive criticism. Improve your articles the best you can, and move on.

I have just signed up to write for Demand Studios and find their “Find Assignments” very frustrating. In the section on “Aminals” then “dogs” I find titles for modifying a Big Dog Mutt Super Trap muffler. I find this problem in all categories.

Any suggestions for more coherent places to write that may pay a little more?

In general, I don’t write for content sites on a regular basis. I only wrote the three articles for Demand Media so that I could write this review (which is now a year and a half old).

So, it’s somewhat difficult for me to give you a good answer. My answer would be to target large corporations in your company and find out if they need the services of a writer.

However, if you are determined to go the content site route, you might browse through the other comments on this post. I notice that some commenters here are listing other content sites where they have submitted articles.

Hello all, I just wanted to thank the commenters on this blog who have saved me a lot of time and headache. I went ahead and tried Demand Media anyway (like an idiot)…but I went ahead and left this message on their forums and figured I’d drop it off here too.

So I’ve just waisted a good 6 hours of my life attempting to write 3 articles for Demand Studios. 3 articles…that’s 1200 words (which I can normally spew out in an hour) I’ve just waisted 6 hours of my life on. After this expenditure I figure I’ll be needing something from this company, and since I won’t be receiving any money I figure I’ll just put some things out there. I’m a desperate person, I’ve actually been unable to feed myself at times for the last 6 months and I thought Demand Studios was the place to be. I could not have been more wrong.

As I said before, I am accustomed to spewing out $5.00 per 500 word articles that take me an average of 15-20 minutes to write. While the website(s) in question may not pay as much per article, they do not send my work back for revision. In fact I cannot recall the last time my writing has been questioned this much. Now, many of you zealots will chalk this up to the inadequacy of other websites’ standards (or my writing), and you are free to do so. In fact though, Demand Studios has little to no standards to speak of, the format being imposed upon writers is 3 parts SEO, 1 part fluff and 1 part usefullness (assuming each part accounts for 20% of the dribble here).

I understand that there are some talented, desperate and scared people writing for this company…up until 10 minutes ago I was one of them. In fact, many of the people working for this company are very smart and creative people who are being oppressed. I empathize with you all and bestow upon you what little wisdom I have to offer in my 20-some years on this earth. “This too shall pass” is my best advice, this is the single best thing I can share with you, my freelancing brothers and sisters. We have to stand up for ourselves and not admonish these monsters, but abandon them…nightmares disappear when you pay them no mind.

I cannot share with everyone where I am headed (my little secret), but I will say that the pay is better and the editors are only as strict as they need to be. I will not waste my time talking about the editors on this site (that has been done more than enough by other people); but, what I will bother to share is that the people of the world have had enough. Companies who abuse people and put them through a meat grinder have much to answer for not in the court of popular opinion or even a court of law…no these people have to answer for their indiscretions right here on the Internet.

To the zealots and baffoons who will defend this monster of a corporation I can only encourage you to either open your eyes or come at me /b/ro, I’m right here and I’m not afraid of any of you. The people in this country are waking up fast, we’re realizing that dreams are realized in the gutters…not on assembly lines. Once you check into a roach motel like Demand Studios you will not be checking out. I really did give this place a shot and (much to my chagrin) was let down in droves. I will prosper because I am not a writer, I am a marketer. I plan on making my own money much the same way Demand does, but I will not be abusing people.

Wake up or fall by the wayside, the choice is yours.

This message will be posted to every major article distribution network I can lay my hands on, and every blog I can comment on and believe me, it will have an impact.

Have to agree with James. I purchased “Demand Studio Secrets” and followed the suggested procedures. All of my articles have required “edits” thus far, and the last editor rejected the rewrite because I corrected his/her knowledge (or lack thereof!) of the topic.

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[…] a role in how quickly you produce an article. That being said, I recently reviewed Demand Studios (An End to the Feast or Famine Cycle? (Demand Studios review) : WritingThoughts) and as part of my research wrote several articles for them. Writing a Demand Studios articles took […]